420
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL MAY 22, im
notions on their special subjects. The Biblio-
graphies are very full ; but so long as it is im-
possible to award proper praise and denunciation
to particular books, they hardly help the student
at all. What he is apt to do is to waste his
time on authorities of little value when there are
better ones to be had. We are glad to see in this
section mention of valuable work in our own
columns by Mr. Charles Crawford and others.
When such subjects as Shakespeare and Milton
are reached, we shall hope to see rigorous selection
from the crowds of books which illuminate and
obscure the essential issues.
Dr. T. M. Lindsay opens the volume with a very readable survey of ' Englishmen and the Classical Renascence. We rather doubt his view of the extent of the influence of English scholars on Erasmus, whose work is generally well appre- ciated here. The Rev. J. P. Whitney is an able writer, and deals excellently with ' Reformation Literature in England ' ; while the Rev. R. H. Benson has an article on ' The Dissolution of the Religious Houses ' which strikes us as laudably free from religious bias. ' Sir David Lyndsay and the Later Scotch " Makaris," ' by Mr. T. F. Henderson, and ' Reformation and Renascence in Scotland,' by Dr. Hume Brown, keep up the high standard of the Scottish articles hitherto published in the ' History.' Mr. H. H. Child writes fluently on ' The New English Poetry,' which means Tottel's miscellany, Wyatt, the Earl of Surrey, Tusser, and others. We notice that he follows our practice in the spelling " un- rimed verse." We are somewhat surprised at the description of the ' Zodiacus Vitse,' which has given to English some well-known commonplaces, such as " Rome was not built in a day." Dr. Courthope in dealing with ' The Poetry of Spenser ' is old-fashioned enough to speak of " the standard of Horace," and quote four lines of the ' Ars Poetica ' in the original. We are glad to see that unsurpassed manual of literary art still held in honour. Dr. Courthope says all that can be said in favour of Spenser, and perhaps a little too much. Mr. Lee is careful, as ever, in his study of ' The Elizabethan Sonnet.' Prof. Saintsbury on ' Prosody from Chaucer to Spenser ' and ' Elizabethan Criticism ' is as learned as he is difficult to read.
Of the remaining articles, those by Mr. Charles Whibley on ' Chroniclers and Antiquaries,' and by Dr. Foakes-Jackson ' Of the Laws of the Ecclesiastical Polity,' are distinguished by a gift of style which puts their writing well above the general level of the ' History.' The present volume is, however, full of valuable matter not easily to be obtained elsewhere. ' The Language from Chaucer to Shakespeare,' by Mr. J. W. H. Atkins, is a striking study of English, with many interesting examples of words and phrases which are familiar to-day, but freely used without know- ledge of their origin or introducers. The growing use of " its " in Elizabethan English ought, we think, to have been mentioned. Mr. W. H. Wood- ward's article on ' English Universities, Schools, and Scholarship in the Sixteenth Century ' occupies twenty pages, and seems to us an example of unsuccessful compression. How can any one deal with so large a subject in such a space ? Much has, in fact, to be briefly said which is un- explained, and which requires more than ordinary knowledge in the reader to be understood. Mantuanus, a school author of Shakespeare's
day, turns up in other parts of the ' History,'
but is not mentioned here. To the list of schools
and salaries of head masters details might have
been added of Stratford Grammar School, which,
Mrs. Stopes has shown, was particularly well
served. Her book ' Shakespeare's Warwick-
shire Contemporaries ' (1907), which has chapters
on ' The Clergy of Stratford ' and ' The School-
masters,' should certainly be added to the Biblio-
graphy. We also note that in this part of the
book the name of that distinguished critic of
English, M. Jusserand, should figure more fre-
quently than it does. He has made, for instance,
an important, though unfavourable estimate of
Spenser. The Index is really useful.
The Itinerary of John Leland. Edited by Lucy
Toulmin Smith. Vol. IV. (Bell & Sons.) THR fourth volume of Miss Toulmin Smiths momimental edition of Leland contains Parts VII. and VIII., the former consisting of a more or less connected narrative of the journey through Cheshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire the latter of discursive jottings about many counties, together with the interesting notes on Kent, taken from the ' Collectanea." The genealogy of the Earls of Oxford, who appear to have been descended from Noah, and some Latin notes on the records of Tewkesbury Abbey arc included in the First Appendix ; the Second contains portions of the ' Collectanea ' dealing with Here- ford and Wales, and Leland's abstract notes on Welsh history " ex chronico incerti autoris " ; while the Third is occupied with the brief reference to the Channel Islands in which occurs the mystifying phrase " Insula Rastorum." In view of the dimensions of the island in question, Sir E. Maunde Thompson's conjecture of " pas- torum " is scarcely plausible. Miss Toulmin Smith's own supposition that " rastorum " is a Latinizing of " rast," meaning " race " or " swift water " (as in the Race of Alderney), and that the powerful tides and currents in the vicinity of the island are alluded to here, seems at once more likely and more correct.
Like its predecessors, the present volume contains full Indexes of Persons and Places, and a map illustrative of the author's journeying.
We must call special attention to the following
notices :
ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.
We cannot undertake to answer queries privately, nor can we advise correspondents as to the value of old books and other objects or as to the means of disposing of them.
Editorial communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries ' "Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers "at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.
ERRATUM. P. 389, col. 1, 1. 21, for "views" read venet.
J. B. MoGovKRN ( "Immoritur studiis, et amore senescit habendi"). Horace, Ep. 1. vii. 85.
